Herbert Flashcards
Love III - quotes
“But quick eyed love, observing me grow slack/ from my first entrance in,/ drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning/ if I lacked any thing”
“You must sit down, says love, and taste my meat:/ so I did sit and eat”
The Windows - quotes
“Lord, how can man preach thy eternal word?/ he is like a brittle crazy glass;/ yet in thy temple thou dost him afford/ this glorious and transcendent place,/ to be a window, through thy grace.” Interrogative opening: searching for answers
“Making thy life to shine within/ the holy Preacher’s” - preacher as vessel for knowledge
“But speech alone/ doth vanish like a flaring thing,/ and in the ear, not conscience, ring”
insecurities as a preacher; temporary nature of messages and ephemerality of speech (conrast to written form)
irony of presenting ideas in a poem, which are spoken and vanish?
George Herbert - key texts/about
The Temple published posthumously after his death in 1633. Love III The Windows Hope Trinity Sunday Heaven Man Christmas
George Herbert - Critics
John Drury - Herbert’s relationship with God: “as everyday as it is intense”. Herbert’s works characterised by spiritual conflicts between his soul and God. Voices frustration at the “absence of a God who promised to be present”. Poems have an “exquisite balance between grief and joy”.
Heaven
unique FORM - Echo poem. Herbert’s God answers back, unlike Donne’s. Must be read aurally for full effect.
“O who will show me those delights on high? echo: I”
“tell me, what is that supreme delight? Light. Light to the mind, what shall the will enjoy? Joy.” (opposition of body and mind)
“Light, joy, leisure; but shall they persever? Ever” (affirmation of faith and endurance; comforting OR hollow because the only response is the self?)
Hope
Two stanzas, AABB. “I gave hope a watch of mine: but he/ an anchor gave to me,/then an old prayer-book I did present:/ and he an optic sent. / With that I gave a vial full of tears:/ but he a few green ears:/ Ah loiterer! I’ll no more bring:/ I did expect a ring.” - foiled love? Cryptic love messages? Symbolism of items - ring = marriage/affirmation of faith…?
The Forerunners
“Lovely enchanting language, sugar-cane,/ honey of roses, whither wilt thou fly?” - beauty of language, the tool and vessel of his emotions. Received here through the mouth, or tasting good on the tongue as spoken?
Trinity Sunday
Links to Donne’s The Trinity. Three stanzas, 3 lines (playing on trinity…) Final stanzas embodies trinity the most: “Enrich my heart, mouth, hands in me,/ with faith, with hope, with charity;/ that I may run, ruse, rest with thee.” ABA rhyme.
Christmas
“After pleasures as I rid one day,/ My horse and I, both tir’d, body and mind,” (go to Inn and find Christ) “There when I came, whom found I but my dear,/ My dearest Lord,” (Christ abides in the most mundane places)
“The shepherds sing, and shall I silent be?/ My God, no hymn for thee?/ My soul’s a shepherd too; a flock it feeds,/ of thoughts, and words, and deeds. The pasture is thy word: the streams, thy grace/ enriching all the place./ Shepherd and flock shall sing,/ and all my powr’s/ outsing the daylight hours.” “His beams shall cheer my breast, and both so twine,/ till ev’n his beams sing, and my music shine.” (song) - beauty of Christ in every day. Pastoral imagery of shepherd/flock and natural residence of God’s spirit.
